emptiness of the desert’s palm, it was jumping like a jumping bean from nothing to nothing, and the only thing keeping her occupied was writing book reports on the complete works of Lois Lenski: Strawberry Girl, Coal Camp Girl, Houseboat Girl. She was already way ahead of schedule and almost to the end of her supply and pretty soon she’d have to write reports on make-believe books or write the books herself and then report on them.
Charlie couldn’t be bothered with books. He had his compass and his chemistry set and he was working on a topographical map, and of course, most importantly, he had his own sister to use for all his calculations of heights and distances, shamefully exploiting her so his map could be as precise as possible. He may have been the inventor of the bethometer measuring system, one bethometer equaling one of her strides, her height equaling two bethometers, but she was the guinea pig who enacted his theory in all its dangerous glory, thereby proving its worthiness. Her legs were tied off for complete accuracy. In case she thought the bethometer system silly, Charlie reminded her about twelve inches being the foot of the king of England. He sent her tied up over the rocks, twice, and up the outcroppings, twice, while she counted off her hobbled strides. Three times if the counts didn’t match. Beth Waterman, Human Surveying Tool. This would probably be the first book she wrote after her Lois Lenski supply ran out, and in it she would detail the many desert adventures she’d been having, starting with her death-defying climbs in the name of science and ending with—at the moment, ending with a man taking a nap.
She couldn’t stand it any longer. She found the straw boater, crawled over, and dropped it over Harry’s face.
Her mom called and Charlie went over and they started discussing the upcoming meal as if it could be something out of a restaurant, as if it could come with dessert, which was what she wanted more than anything. Up until now she hadn’t asked a lot of questions. She knew the main answer, Charlie’s Adventure, to the main unasked question, but she didn’t know any of the smaller answers to the smaller questions, for example, what exactly are we doing? What are we doing tomorrow? Maybe that had been a mistake, not asking questions. Her mom was starting to remind her of someone on a trampoline who wouldn’t get off.
In the brown silence Beth was always hearing voices. A whisper between Charlie and her mother echoed back to her in a near scream. The air blocked nothing; everything traveled through it undiminished. And the rock walls sent the words back amplified. It was not such a big deal after all that Indians had such great hearing. If she lived out here, she’d have great hearing, too. She could guess, for example, that the engine she found herself listening to was miles away though it sounded directly upon them. She could guess big truck coming, many cylinders. The motor churned to a pitch, then rewound itself and wrenched and churned again.
When the truck doors opened and slammed shut, it became real. Her mother had already turned from the cooking and was standing alertly. Her hair was tied back but the strands that always escaped were hanging down her face. Before she could push them back, two men walked into the camp, hands on their hats as if to remove them. “Hello,” one of them said. “Sorry for the interruption.” They bowed their heads, fingers dipped into the felt creases, but the hats stayed on. “Hello there. Good afternoon.”
“Hello,” her mother said plainly. A big metal spoon in her hand was hanging by her side but her grip was tight and the spoon arched upward. The men were probably amused, thinking, This lady figures she’s holding a weapon.
“Saw Harry’s truck out there, supplies on the road. Everything okay? That is Harry’s truck.”
Her mother nodded toward Harry, still lying asleep under the piñon tree with the straw boater over his face. The two men chuckled through their noses and gave each other a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t want to interrupt his nap, but his truck’s blocking our way,” the one man said.
Her mother didn’t say anything, just stood there with her spoon.
“So how do you know Harry?” the man asked.
“I don’t,” her mother said. “I just met him.” Her hands started toward her hair but stopped, and Beth knew the strands hanging in her mother’s face were driving her crazy. “He introduced himself to me,” her mother said pointedly.
“And went directly to his naptime. Sounds like Harry, doesn’t it?” The men’s clothes were nice but dirty. They were precisely donned. The pants were pushed into high work boots. The shirts were tucked in and the belts looked buckled too tight, above their belly buttons. The underarms of the shirts revealed lapping salt patterns like the white dustings around the waterhole she and Charlie had found (the unappetizing waterhole that was waiting for them when their own supply ran out. Soon). And the men wore unzipped khaki vests with lots of pockets. One of the men dug into his vest pocket as he went over to Harry. He lifted the boater, felt Harry’s cheeks with his fingers, and shook his head. “Dry and crepey. Right, oh right, sorry, ma’am, I’m slow to catch on.” Whatever was in his vest pocket he put in his mouth as he stood up. “Didn’t mean to be rude. I’m Paul Morrison, and this is my partner, Ralph Graver. We run the mining camp down the road. Well, six miles down the road—if you take the road. A whole afternoon’s outing, in other words.”
The man who was Ralph Graver laughed.
“What’s so funny?” her mother said.
“It’s that thing out there they call a road. I see it did Harry in again. I call it Bataan’s Missing Link.” Paul Morrison’s hand sliced like a swimming fish toward the desert. “Or three miles if you shoot through there.”
“You mean walk.”
“Burros. Walk. Yes, ma’am.”
“I don’t think she gets your jokes,” Ralph Graver said.
“Probably not,” Paul Morrison said. The belts above their navels made their abdomens swell a little, almost as if they were women. “I shouldn’t joke about Bataan. Lost a friend there.”
“You did not.”
“I did. Ralph, I did.” The man who was Paul Morrison walked over and gave his partner some of the gummy stuff from his vest pocket and when they moved apart, a third man was standing there, right behind them, as if he were the finale of their magic curtain trick. Beth realized right away the magically appearing man was an Indian.
Well, things were looking up. An Indian. She loved Indians.
“Looks like Harry’s gone and given himself heatstroke,” Ralph Graver told the Indian.
“My God, he did that before,” Paul Morrison said.
“Last year just about this time, wasn’t it, Joe?”
Joe the Indian nodded. Beth watched as the Indian’s eyes somehow focused on her mother though his line of vision was pointed elsewhere. The two men were also taking her in. They tried glancing elsewhere to disguise their stare, but a stare was what it was. Her mother’s hand started toward her hair again but stopped. She probably didn’t want the men to think she was trying to look nice for them.
“Check Harry’s front seat. Bet his canteen is full. He filled up at our camp. Bet he didn’t take a single swig. Thinks he’s a camel.”
“Harry and his seasonal heatstroke.”
“Lots of polygs do. Ever since Hole in the Rock they think they’re camels.” Paul Morrison shook his head again, then spat out a black thread.
“Or Navajos. Harry might be trying to out-Navajo you, Joe. Look out.”
By way of acknowledgment, Joe’s eyes closed and opened slowly. Suddenly Ralph Graver scratched hard at his eyebrows as if he were a cat.
“And I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Paul Morrison said to her mother.
“Jean Waterman.”
“How do you do.”
“How do you do.”
“And that would be Mrs. Jean Waterman.”